Archive of the Category 'Real-life Projects'

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Here is another preview of DesignTaleStudio documentary video we are currently working on. Our cameras have entered Ceramiche Refin laboratory to see our technicians at work during the creation of the Pareti d’Autore.

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The bathroom as a setting – as the mainstay of today’s modern homes: a space where to unwind, relax and give way to personal creativity. How to personalise a bathroom in a truly unique way? And be set free from the rationale of the everyday ceramic wall claddings? And… what has DesignTaleStudio got to do with this?
In a Milan tinged with Design, DesignTaleStudio and Ceramiche Flaminia launch their own provoking creation, their proposal for bathroom ambience. This new space comes to life with the cooperation of Flamina: a space where the Pareti d’Autore RMD create a prismatic almost “cocooning” effect thanks to a clever use of the lights. Even the bathroom flooring and fitting coverings are carried out in large sized porcelain stoneware.

You can see this creation at the Flaminia Showroom in Milan, 18, Via Solferino. For more in-depth details and photographs, click on the link to the Flaminia Showroom sheet in the “Projects” section.

The main problem we came across while setting-up the “Meta Design” exhibition, was that of doing justice to the sheer beauty brought to the real world by DesignTaleSudio’s ceramics. The Pareti d’Autore where meant to be main cladding surface and works of art all at the same time, therefore, they had to, without compromise, “stand out” the best way possible.

The majority of the interior floors and wall-tiles we see on Second Life fall into two categories: the “ordinary” ones (flat surfaces, characterised by a feel of “comfortable” minimalism and with no basic aesthetic research) and the “grotesque” (textures which struggle to emulate real materials such as parquet, marble and stone with the use of photographic images). At the moment, perhaps the most interesting creations are those which use semi-transparent, opaque material, such as large, slightly reflective windows or plastic panels.

Ceramic has proven still difficult to use on Second Life, but with a bit of extra effort we believe we managed a better result than expected. In our opinion, the concept of the traditional ceramic tile as we know it, that is to say, a small glazed tile, is verging to grotesque, especially when the surface is reflective and the installation pattern conveys a very “grid-like” effect. The result is a kind of mural of identical repeated images where the real-life luminous qualities of the tile are reduced to whitish geometric shapes, mechanically repeated in an un-natural way. With larger sizes the same problem is slightly reduced though still visible: it is therefore better to use opaque products where graphics outshine the tactile and visual effects of the material.

Various slabs designed by famous personalities, such as those of Rashid, Fiorucci and Bermudez, actually did have these very characteristics and it was therefore relatively easy to display them effectively. But it was a different story for the totem designed by De Lucchi and, especially, the DesignTaleStudio’s Pareti d’Autore, whose light and material effects of the three-dimensional surface had to be reproduced. The solution we came up with was to use photographs of the products whose reflections had been partially reduced. In the case of De Lucchi’s work, the surface of the slabs was a single image, previously created with Photoshop by delaying the overall light of the original “amateurish” photo taken during the Design On Stage exhibition. But the Pareti d’Autore, especially the overly iridescent “unphotographable” ones like the Gold and Platinum, worked better if used as decoration rather than repeated backdrop. After being slightly retouched via computer and loaded on Second Life with the maximum resolution possible, the images from afar recaptured all the energy of the original designs while the close-up showed the fascination of their softness to the touch and light.

In one of his recent articles Stefano Bernuzzi in Archinfo took stock of the current situation of architecture and design in the virtual world of Second Life. The article made us reflect a lot and now we strongly recommend it to every fan of architecture and architecture professionals.

After covering interesting competitions and experiments that took place recently, the article moves on to review the most common opportunities and problems featuring the metaverse. Firstly, Bernuzzi bemoans how only very few architects still have demonstrated a knack of capturing the potential of Second Life, in terms of experimental platform, where to introduce and test radically creative and innovative solutions; and, not to mention, in my opinion, the planning of virtual spaces destined to three-dimensional “experiences” which can only happen in the metaverse and cannot consequently be emulations and prototypes of the “real life”. Secondly, what we have seen so far hardly moves away from the archetype and concepts of “real” architecture, which are often based on destinations of use restrictions, actually disappearing in the virtual world to make room for other bonds. Nevertheless, the article unfailingly points out how in the “Linden Economy” (which, in reality is not all that “virtual”) architectural planning and the realisation of buildings is becoming one of the most sought-after and profitable activities and therefore prospectively highly competitive. In short, we need to get a move on.

In light of all this, we believe it essential for a company which produces architectural and building materials, such as ours, and in particular for its creative laboratory, which by definition is constantly striving to seek aesthetical innovation, to be open to the many opportunities of the virtual architecture. We need to force ourselves away from this traditional “material” culture and attempt a new conceptualization of the ceramic product that shifts from a tangible object (the “pallet” logic) to a pure aesthetic object (the “file” logic).

We have already spoken of the trust Refin and DesignTaleStudio have put into “metaverse architecture” as a platform for creative experimentation, as a test-bed to launch new products. Our very own “Meta Design” was our first “attempt” into the world of “virtual porcelain stoneware slabs” for wall cladding and flooring in Second Life. Our work carries on, parallel to the development of the “rendering engine” of the metaverse of Linden Labs: we are positive that new really innovative and useful solutions for “virtual architecture” will only be possible after the creation of truly convincing interior and exteriors. In the next few days we will share a few observations worked out during our experience in Second Life in the hope they will be helpful for all architects currently facing virtual worlds.

We would like to take the opportunity of the new Project section activation in the DTS web-site to speak about the Gallery Bar, a venue in Vicenza designed by the Arredi Costa Group, using the RDM slabs by DesignTaleStudio.

This project has really enthralled me with its richness, the blending of shapes and materials, its light geometries… . The Gallery of 650 square meters with over 200 seats hosting up to 600 people, is a multipurpose area which can be used as a cafeteria, a restaurant, a cocktail bar or even a music bar.

The customers access the building through a majestic glass façade which veils the interiors increasing the customers’ expectations: when entering the bar they immediately feel enshrouded in lights sounds and videos as if in a parallel universe enclosed within this marvelous case. Many lounge zones, one after the other, are dressed with unusual and amusing sofas, up to the restaurant area where the tables are set out in a dynamic way and separated from the main area by a glass wall so that even the people enjoying dinner in the restaurant can interact with the bar-room atmosphere and be part of the events while tasting a sumptuous meal and sipping a glass of wine.

In such a context the RDM slabs by DesignTaleStudio stand out as the surface of the bar: a huge “monolith” with ethnic and brilliant traits cleverly emphasized and made almost surrealistic by lighting. This provides evidence of the super-versatility of DesignTaleStudio slabs also for “unconventional” uses such as volumes covering. This project is the very statement of the importance of large size tiles: the flooring, in fact, is covered with 60×120 size tiles perfectly matching the Pareti - an unimaginable opportunity until quite recently, bearing witness to the research and technological innovation of the ceramic industry over the past few years.

If you’d like to enjoy a drink in this evocative venue, plan a trip to Vicenza at the Gallery, dinner & dance. Meanwhile, if you are happy to settle for some photographs “only”, feel free to visit the sheet in the Project section.

I have endeavoured to re-elaborate on certain information and opinions that I put forward as ideas to reflect on the way which, today, we take for granted things that “we need” in our everyday lives.

In a world that, we can casually say, is changing very quickly, and in particular where globalization and the world wide web have effectively turned market forces upside-down, it sometimes seems that we lose the significance of the concept of “mass market”, while, increasingly, it is the individual or consumer who creates his own personal micro-market.

It is increasingly difficult to identify groups of consumers with homogenous tastes (the classic “target” often cited by marketing experts) while the “EGO”, so dear to those who are, or who pretend to be psychologists, is back on the scene and, are effectively merely individuals with their own creativity and their own tastes and who influence or inspire companies to create new products in every field.

Today, people seem less embarrassed (even proud) to show themselves as they really are, and they tend to steadfastly refuse (to only then strangely accept them… but this is another story) mass standardization and therefore, at the same time deny, in buying the object, the “ready-made” styles. Effectively, today people are less influenced when choosing, they are less embarrassed to mix different styles, they choose one brand today and then snub it tomorrow, they do not fall for trends but observe them, they collect only what they like and, more frequently than ever, they create.
One very interesting thing is the fact that, especially thanks to the ease in which information is “globally” gathered, that is not restricted by national boundaries but, not even taking into consideration other variables, individuals have an ever increasing consumer behaviour that transcends nationality, age, tradition and cultural constraints.

To keep “on track” with the theme of this site, I believe I can permit myself to say, also based on what I have read in the Press, that products and services which we consider “a luxury” today can be seen carrying different connotations in respect to the past, and that even items that were previously not labelled this way, can now be considered “a luxury”. In fact, today luxury can also be thought as:

• No longer ostentatious or status symbol, but an object linked to the individual and therefore takes its value from the unique and intense experience of every person who lives the object (even if this is almost always based on socially shared values)
• Emotion combined with innovation
• Personalization, with objects that are (or appear to be) exclusively made for me

In this light, it can also be said that, at least for a few, the search for perfection pursued by progress is not important, but they give ever increasing importance to the value of nature, slow lifestyles, real “things” and, because of this, not perfect. Hand-crafted products are always different from one another, there is always a slight imperfection or defects which make them UNIQUE and absolutely irreproducible.

People, who today prefer to not hide their own “imperfections”, but who instead value their own complexities, are those who are perfectly mirroring this attitude even in the things they buy. Identifying oneself in what one buys also means the personalization of the object, refusing, as we have said, the standardization, the bias, the styles “dictated” by others, the status symbols and, in contrast, the desire to express and surround oneself with things that represent us, to share with others and be enriched by such a sharing of personal and different tastes and values.

Repubblica.it today carried the news story, along with a video, on the latest extravaganza by famous Japanese jeweller Ginza Tanaka: a bikini made up entirely of 24 carat gold, worth an estimated 82 thousand dollars.

It is well know that Japan is the very centre of the luxury market: alone, it covers 40% of the segment. And Tanaka is not new to such acts of provocation, one only has to think back to his handbag made of platinum and encrusted with 2,182 diamonds (valued at 1.63 million dollars), or his Christmas tree of solid gold (21 kilos, valued at 850,000 dollars). In contrast to its predecessors, however, it is my opinion that the shock value of the object-bathing costume is based on at least 3 peculiar aspects.

Firstly, it is a garment whose primary use means it constantly exposed to the sun and to prolonged contact with water, therefore, intrinsically, it is likely to deteriorate and lose value. On top of this, the size of a bathing costume is also proportional to the size of the body that wears it: does then, when the dress size goes up, the price also go up? In fact, quiet apart from even the most expensive everyday fabrics, even the slightest extra amount of gold in the garment should lead to a significant increase in the production costs. Finally, seeing that fashion in the first half of 2007 is going through a “golden age”, we can see a certain amount of provocation in Tanaka’s idea, a provocation even directly aimed at the designers in fashion houses, as if to say: you refer to fabric and aesthetic effects as “gold”, while I am actually a “golden artist”, I have the right to actually use it in one of my projects, without the need of surrogate fabrics.

It is also no surprise that the gold bikini has set tongues wagging in the world of blogs, for example, in respect to its effective use potentials, and joking about what it would cost for a size to fit the larger woman; but amongst all this analysis, it is the morality that lies behind such an idea that raises the biggest question marks. However, for those who wish to make a splash on the beach in the summer of 2007… Ginza Tanaka’s on-line store is just a click away.

[tags]Gold, Tanaka, Ginza Tanaka, bikini, fashion, summer 2007, swimsuit[/tags]

Those who in recent weeks have been lucky enough to walk past Piazza Garibaldi in Parma could not have failed to pause for at least one minute to admire the sculpture by Giuliano Vangi on display under the Portici del Grano.

Amongst the works on display in the Piazza (the main part of the exhibition in the nearby Galleria San Ludovico), “Il Nodo” is without doubt the sculpture which attracts the most admiring attention from passers-by. It is a stainless steel and gold sculpture depicting two young people, one male, one female, who are running, together towards the future. And it is the use of gold that, in my opinion, is the most interesting aspect of the sculpture with respect to this blog.

Whereas the steel moulds the sculpture in its shapes and forms, making it very recognisable thanks to its highly shiny and reflective surface, the gold can only be seen upon examining the sculpture up close, as it has been used in very small quantities to emphasise and give greater value to the details on the faces and of the veil the female figure is holding in her hand. A very refined use of gold therefore, almost “spiritual”; as in the words of art critic Luciano Caramel, a “rarefaction of everyday life”, a long way from the visual noise and the idea of flamboyance which often distinguish the golden objects around us.

It is very difficult to show a photo of “Il Nodo”, as its colours and forms change when viewed from different angles. But, perhaps because of this, it is easy to feel moved and not realise how time is flying by when one is viewing the sculpture. There is still time until June 10 to view the work yourself, in Parma.

As announced in the previous post, from now on this blog will habitually launch discussion themes which will be the focus of the posts for a short period of time: themes associated with design, architecture, creativity, the market place… and obviously ceramics.

The first theme we wish to concentrate on is the use of precious metal inspired textures in design, in particular gold. A choice that seems to have split the world in two halves: those who see gold as the divine, absolute and infallible material and those who consider it merely as a symbol of opulence, excess and the total desire to be flamboyant.

Gold has always been considered the “cherry on the cake” and golden accessories as something that communicate importance and uniqueness. Being able to work gold is a prerogative of master craftsmen traditions; having and showing gold is a sign of riches and distinguishes those who can from those who “cannot”.

But in the Spring 2007 it seems that we are witnessing a mutation of the aesthetic character of gold. Mainstream fashion is dominated by gold, all one needs to do is look in a shop window display. Actually I was reading on a recent issue of Repubblica Affari & Finanza that every 37 minutes a gold coloured pair of sneakers or other “precious” texture is sold on eBay.

For two famously controversial designers like Dolce & Gabbana gold is the “colour of positivity, of the sun, of luxury and the new dolce vita”, with such a strong communicative potential to even inspire the creation of the first concept restaurant D&G in Milan. Once we had decided to design Gold and Platinum Pareti d’Autore, desired to create a luxurious, extreme object, purposely not for all that could represent an archetype of elegance and absolute prestige but we were well aware of running the risk of falling into kitsch.

Our Pareti are not simply “gold-plated” with a varnishing process: they contain pure 24 carat gold and because of this they are produce in a limited number as if they were pieces of jewelry. We reflected at length on the oxymoron of creating a product purposefully with no obvious market but at the same time fashionable. And we constantly struggled against the unpredictable nature of an expensive material rarely used in the ceramic industry.

Today, many designers choose gold to communicate a flavor of excess of the new riches of the emerging world markets, but at the same time the “old” western bourgeoisie that has always been familiar with it and continues to consider it a prime element of its lifestyle.

So, isn’t gold THE status symbol par excellence, used by the emerging classes of all generations to express their recently achieved social standing? or, over time has it become a cheap and trivial finishing only for those who are happy to express their personality with something shiny and expensive? Is it possible to design elegant and refined spaces using gold, or are we destined to descend into flamboyance?

We will discuss these themes in the weeks to come, listening to the testimony of personalities who had already pondered this issue at length.

[tags]Gold, DesignTaleStudio, Dolce&Gabbana, D&G, fashion[/tags]

We are honored to feature a post written by architect Paolo Cermasi about the booth he designed on behalf of Refin/DesignTaleStudio for the Coverings trade fair, beginning in Chicago on April, 17th.

The desert, a boundary of the human living and a metaphor of the mental abstraction, a nowhere-land for mystics, writers, artists and visionaries. “ Refin Ceramiche SpA “ installation, designed by Paolo Cermasi, is a small tribute to the extraordinary legacy of modern housing that a group of architects and designers built in the ’40 and ’50 in Palm Springs, California desert.

For 20 years, there has been experienced how the house could function in a very modern way within their environment. Amid volcanic boulders , in a fully mineral world, only steel, concrete, slate, glass and tiles could survive.

The desert demanded a new way of thinking how to live there. Fireplaces were called by winter nights, extensive fabric canopies were demanded for sun protection of the large tiled outdoors where people wanted to be when they were there. Under the massive flat roofs, wall divisions became thinner and fewer , making the houses transparent and weightless:

The western “desert architecture” opened the way to the most dominant character of the contemporany architectural research.

[tags]Chicago, Coverings, Paolo Cermasi, architecture, booth, stand, design, Refin, DesignTaleStudio [/tags]